


Together Again

by teeglow



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Episode tag: s3e01 Spoils of War, Friendship, Gen, Sad Aramis, Sad Porthos, Spoils of War, missing each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 22:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10201781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teeglow/pseuds/teeglow
Summary: Aramis is reunited with his very best friends after three years and a war came between them. He's delighted but there's one thing troubling him: Porthos. Porthos doesn't look happy.A brief examination of the feelings ricocheting off the walls of the monastery in Spoils of War. I despise any distance between Porthos and Aramis and so do they, I assure you.





	

The first time Aramis hugs Porthos, it's not the same as it was three years ago. It's a half-hearted, half-armed little chest bump and Aramis wonders if he's imagining it. It's not like the either of the hugs he received minutes prior from D'Artagnan and Athos. D'Artagnan's was warm, full in a way that D'Artagnan always was, and Athos' was steadfast – firm and true. Porthos' was reluctant at best.

But, Aramis surmises, it has been three years. Maybe he's forgotten what it used to be like, overplayed it in his head. Of course, deep down he knows he hasn't forgotten at all, how could he? An embrace from Porthos enriches the soul and Aramis counts himself lucky to have been so deeply nourished by his friendship for as long as he has. It's probably why he can't bring himself to imagine that he's lost that now. 

So he ignores it. Pushes down the unease and focuses on the task at hand – protecting his children. 

Even so, he's grateful for Marie when she calls him over. He leaps to his feet too quickly and prays that Porthos didn't notice. Aramis has been hyper-aware of his presence since he arrived, stations himself close but not close enough to force conversation or seem like he's hovering. Even though he is. He definitely is.

When Marie whispers her question to him, Aramis' heart genuinely seems to swell. A spark kindles in his eyes as he says playfully 'I don't know, let's ask him shall we?' He looks up at his friend, whose face is more open than it was before, almost worried, as he looks down at this tiny child and Aramis thinks perhaps all is not lost yet. 

He grins as Porthos plays his part, laughs harder when Marie gives him a spirited kick in the shins which, though Porthos doesn't know it, is typical of the small girl that Aramis has raised since she arrived at the monastery as a toddler, a month or so after his own arrival. Buoyed by the exchange, Aramis mistakes Porthos' patented grumbly reply for a sign that things are okay between them, and he decides to try for the hug again. Maybe he imagined it before. Maybe this time, it'll be better.

He doesn't hide his hurt when Porthos turns away. He doesn't need to because Porthos won't look at him. Aramis hates the way his heart deflates, as if this is somehow more painful than not having Porthos around at all. Aramis has missed him for three long years, didn't think he could miss anyone more, apart from his son and Anne of course, but then that's different. Porthos is Porthos. To have him so near, but not his friendship – well, he supposes, it is worse than missing him. It's not what he dreamed of at all.

But he keeps on. 'I couldn't go to war with you Porthos.' It's his reasonable voice. It's the same voice he used when he explained that he could love the Queen if she weren't married. The voice that drips with wishes and wistfulness. Neither of them connect these dots though. 

Porthos is calm in his anger, a sure way of telling that he believes he has the moral high ground. Which, Aramis thinks, he probably does. He's not wrong to be upset. Aramis himself wishes desperately he could have been on the battlefield with him. Every day his heart ached something fierce to think that Porthos and his brothers were running into danger and every time his thoughts led him to the conclusion that Porthos could die and Aramis wouldn't even know it, it was like something sharp had been pressed into his skin. He'd tense during prayer, gasp during sleep, tossing and turning, trying to shake the very thought from his treacherous mind. 

But Aramis also knows that what he says now is true too. He couldn't go to war with his brothers. He'd made a vow and war was his first test. It had hurt to watch his brothers ride away without him. Porthos had looked back, D'Artagnan too, their disappointment palpable as Athos simply nodded in understanding. To be understood by Athos and not the others was something Aramis had never experienced before. D'Artagnan would come to understand but Aramis had never been sure about Porthos. And it looks now as if he was right – forgiveness was not going to come so easily from the man he counted as his very best friend in the world. 

When Porthos calls him a comrade, Aramis almost wants to laugh and ask him if that was it? Was that all their relationship was, a battlefield convenience? A strategy? A habit, even? Porthos was never a comrade to Aramis, not after his first week with the Musketeers. No, Porthos was his brother, his friend – he'd lost count of the number of times they had drunk together, gambled together, kissed each other, hugged and touched and slept in the same bed. But Porthos calls him a comrade. Perhaps it is not Aramis who has forgotten, then, but Porthos. Or perhaps the hug is getting to him now. 

Aramis can't help but imagine how hard it must have been for his brothers to adapt to being a trio, after being a quartet for so long. He had felt like he was missing a limb for an entire year – he still felt like there was a part of him not quite complete, but it wasn't as acute as it was in those first months. To go into battle with that feeling must have been difficult. Nigh on impossible considering Aramis could barely get himself out bed whilst suffering the same. He wishes that he hadn't left such a burden on his friend's shoulders but the alternative – betraying God after He had saved the lives of his family, his love, his son, his brothers, as well as his own – that was impossible too.

When Porthos tells him that they learned to live without him, it still stings. The pain might have dulled over time, but it was still pain, living each day knowing that his brothers were together elsewhere, being Porthos, Athos and D'Artagnan without him. He knows deep down that Porthos is just lashing out, but the words still cut like barbs. 

Again, he allows them to. He deserves this. He expected it. He steels himself to withstand it. This too shall pass. He hopes. Those cold hugs from Porthos haven't quite dampened hope just yet. (Sparring with him a week later would be worse. Aramis had been punched many times by Porthos but he had never before felt the heat. And Porthos had never before made him bleed without saying sorry.)

It's easier talking to Athos somehow. Athos has never been chatty, companionable silences were more his thing, and over time, they learned to communicate without words, to pick up each others signals as if it was second nature. It's why Aramis is sure that Athos picks up on the words he doesn't say. He ignores Aramis' slip of the tongue as he says 'All these years', as if it's been ten not three, and knows it was more than obedience the marksman couldn't take to – it was the loneliness too. Having brothers but none that cared more than their godliness bid them to. 

Aramis doesn't say it out loud. Athos has been to war, he doesn't need to know Aramis was lonely and really, he only had himself to blame. In any case, he doesn't have to even mention Porthos, Athos still sees Aramis' fleeting glances and feigned nonchalance and all he can do is smile sadly and shrug. 

Porthos comes over and Aramis schools himself to remain cool but the way Athos looks at him apologetically tells him he has failed. The expression that Porthos used to call his 'puppy dog look' is annoyingly hard to suppress but it doesn't matter because Porthos barely catches his eye at all.  
The look Porthos gives him as if he doesn't want to say too much in front of him is familiar but Aramis has never seen it directed at him before. It jars him to be treated as a civilian, but he knows that is what he is now. 

It doesn't make it any less sad. 

It's not long before it's time to escape. Aramis isn't used to going first. 

'Your brothers are waiting'. Inside, everything screams inside of Aramis, he wants to say ' _you're_ my brother', but he doesn't. He just gets his things and leaves. Only Athos sees the disappointed look on Porthos' face, a sign of how much he craved a reaction, something to draw Aramis out of his infuriating calmness. Porthos needed a sign that his absence had been as hard on Aramis as his had been for Porthos. He needed to know that his suffering was at least requited. Athos sighs; if only the two of them knew how much the other loved them even now. It's plain to everyone else.

The new distance between the two of them is shaken somewhat by the bizarre habits they so easily slip back into when the fighting comes. Time may have passed since he last fired a gun, but Aramis' shot remains perfect, even though he claims he is rusty. He feels rusty, unused, but he denies to himself how quickly it all comes flooding back, how the blood seemed to run hot in his veins again as he plunged his sword into the bandit's chest. He has always tried to deny this side of him. He buried it with love.

It is second nature when he jumps on the horse, leading away the cart full of gunpowder from the monastery and the Spanish. Porthos himself, fighting as he is, doesn't dwell on it but his heart stirs when Aramis blows up the first barrel of gunpowder. Maybe he isn't as cold as he'd like to be towards the sharpshooter. But it hasn't made him less angry.

Porthos spits out the bullet and he could growl when Aramis deftly catches it in one smooth motion. They are a painfully good team, know each other inside out, but there remains the voice inside both of their heads that tells them it's past tense now. Aramis loads his gun and Porthos pushes the cart with all his might and both silently decide that there's simply no time for this, not now.

And then suddenly it's finished. The gunpowder is gone and so are the Spanish. They lie side by side on the bank and in the stunned silence, Aramis finds that he wants to say something, anything, now or never, but Porthos beats him to it.

'Are you going to try and tell me you didn't enjoy that?'

And he cackles. And Aramis realises that this is it, the sound he's been longing for for three whole years, the sound that makes him feel like he's above the surface again, instead of gasping for air below. How he's missed this. And it's not so much the excitement at what just happened but the relief that Porthos can still cackle around him that makes the laughter burst from his own chest until they are both falling about together. 

And Porthos touches him, touches him properly for the first time since they reunited, without thinking and because he wants to, because that's what they've always done. Aramis feels like he's been burnt but he's never been so grateful, That spot warms him for days, even when Porthos' eyes grow distant again and he panics that it'll never be the same. Because in that moment, in the afterglow of the bridge explosion, it is the same. Porthos' eyes are alight and Aramis sees himself in them. He feels invincible again.

Porthos pretends that his fondness for Marie doesn't come from the fact that Aramis shines through her, but it does. From the way his shin aches a little from her tiny kick right down to the way she runs to him, trusts him and promises earnestly to look after her guardians, it's pure Aramis. Marie almost makes him understand why Aramis never arrived at the front. And Porthos is still furious about it but really, he knows he won't always be. Not with Aramis. 

Porthos is Porthos and Aramis will always be Aramis.

One and the same. 

God it makes them mad.

**Author's Note:**

> Aramis D'Herblay: Human Disaster  
> Porthos du Vallon: Too Good, Too Pure


End file.
